High school students march in front of Province House on Friday afternoon to urge politicians to take immediate action on climate change. - Francis Campbell

“Today marks a very important day in history,” Julia Sampson, a Grade 11 student at Citadel High School in Halifax, said through a megaphone from the front steps of Halifax City Hall.

“This is a day where hundreds of thousands of students, not just students but citizens of this Earth, came out and made our voices heard.”

The mostly high school voices heard among the 300 people at the boisterous rally ranged loudly from catchy slogans like, “No more coal, no more oil, keep your carbons in the soil,” to “Our future, our climate,” and “What do we want, climate action, when do we want it, now.”

Some 50 students left Citadel High on Trollope Street in Halifax at about 12:30 p.m., and marched up the hill to the Citadel, then back down to city hall and eventually to Province House. They were joined by students from other Halifax area schools, including Halifax West, C.P. Allen and from as far away as Forest Heights Community School in Chester Basin.

“In the words of Greta Thunberg, act like your house is on fire because it is,” Sampson’s megaphoned voice blurted out, bringing another huge cheer from the crowd.

Thunberg, a 16-year-old environmental activist from Sweden, began staging Friday school strikes to protest political inaction on climate change months ago. She has since delivered speeches at the United Nations Climate Talks in Poland and at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Thunberg has even been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by three Norwegian parliamentarians.

Climate change is real — and we need to be taking more action, not less. We will continue to work with Canadians to ensure a cleaner, more prosperous future for our kids and our grandkids. To those who marched today, thank you for sharing your passion. pic.twitter.com/f99gxwKiAq

“Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people to give them hope,” Thunberg said in Davos. “But I don’t want your hope, I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic, I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act, I want you to act as if you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house was on fire, because it is.”

Hundreds of thousands of students across the globe acted on Friday, walking out of school and following Thunberg’s Friday strike lead. Students from more than 2,000 cities in 125 countries marched for climate change action. Among the Nova Scotia rallies were events scheduled for Antigonish, Amherst, Bridgewater and Truro.

At Halifax City Hall, the marchers were met by Mayor Mike Savage and several councillors.

“I encourage you to stay involved,” Savage told the students. “We can do better.”

The mayor told the teens that Halifax Regional Municipality was the second city in Canada to declare a climate emergency and that HRM is leading the charge in the province on banning single-use plastic bags.

With an October 2018 United Nations warning about the dire consequences of not holding global warming to a 1.5-degree increase in the next dozen years hanging over the day, the mayor’s list of accomplishments didn’t do much to placate the charged-up teenagers.

“We say that we have declared a climate emergency but we’re not treating it like an emergency,” Sampson said into the megaphone, challenging the mayor to attend a United Nations climate conference.

“If we’re going to get something done, we need to talk to other leaders, other mayors, other prime ministers, other premiers and we need to make some decisions now,” Sampson said.

Ana Kirby-Breen, a Grade 11 student at the Chester Basin school, said “the government and the politicians need to realize that although they say they are helping, they are not.”

“Unless they make a serious change, we’re all going to die,” said Kirby-Breen, 16.

She said students are often accused of taking part in events just to get out of school.

Students in Newfoundland also took to the streets:

“It’s hurting me more to be out of school,” Kirby-Breen said. “I’m missing stuff that I shouldn’t be missing and I don’t want to miss but I think it’s more important to be here and showing that I care.”

Rand Abounahia, one of the five Citadel organizers along with Sampson, said it’s time for governments to act.

“We are slowly ruining our environment and in 11 years, it will be irreversible,” said Abounahia, 16. “We won’t be able to do anything. We want this generation to live in peace, to have a future and generations coming after us to be able to experience that as well. The environment gave us so much and it’s our turn to take care of it.”

The Grade 11 student said she is still optimistic but the clock is ticking.